13. Queen Of The North

She was born in the harbour of Germany’s port,
The shipyards of Bremen her watery womb,
And in spite of her thirty-eight years on the sea,
To the shame of investors in Coastal B.C.,
The Queen of the North’s a notorious tomb,
Ah, the Queen of the North is a tomb.

It was ’round about midnight, the first day of spring
(2006 was the year of the crime),
The winds in the Passage were cresting gale force,
And the Queen of the North was four miles off her course—
And where was the captain for all of that time?
He just wasn’t on deck at the time.

And a company memo from some years before
Set out these requirements for captain and crew:
“In case some buffoon falls asleep at the switch,
We call for three certified hands on the bridge.”
And the pilot and watchman, they didn’t make two—
Those two didn’t even make two.

Now the logbooks are missing; the inquests are closed—
So no one can tell how the helmswoman failed
To notice an island out there in the dark
Sixty-eight times the size of New York’s Central Park
As onward the ship of fools merrily sailed,
As onward it merrily sailed.

Well, perhaps she was rattled that night at the helm:
This was, after all, her first shift with her ex,
For he was the other man there at her side,
And they’d just broken up—or else said so to hide
The twelve minutes they’d spent having steaming hot coffee,
All alone on the bridge having coffee.

Now the helmswoman tried—we must hope—to change course:
And the ship’s autopilot turned off with one knob,
But the voyage was fated—and fate must be blind—
For you can’t fall asleep at a switch you can’t find.
But at least those computers were doing their job,
Well, at least they were doing their job.

So the ship ran aground on Gil Island that night,
Bearing fifty-nine passengers, forty-two crew.
That’s a tenth of the maximum passenger load,
And to this happy number a miracle’s owed,
For the crewmen who counted forgot only two,
And the sea claimed the lives of just two.

And their deaths were a tragedy, you can be sure,
Like the twelve hundred barrels of fuel in the tank
That painted the whitecaps a rainbow array
And poisoned the shellfish throughout Hartley Bay,
But the real disaster came after it sank—
The real tragedy, after it sank.

For songs have been written since mid-1912,
Of the voyages fated and ships that were lost,
Of the hundreds who died when the good ship set forth—
But only two died on the Queen of the North,
And the Company knew it could swallow the cost,
Aye, it knew it could swallow the cost.

That’s only two mothers deprived of a child,
It’s only four orphans to wish they had lived,
And 108 Mile House a speck on the map,
An electoral district whose votes aren’t worth crap,
So there’s no need to help all those families forgive—
There’s no need to make families forgive.

Soon the families came to seek justice in court,
But the case was a case that the courts wouldn’t try
Without fifty grand in upfront legal fees—
That’s the price now to see and be seen in B.C.
(And I’ve heard a good verdict costs twice that to buy;
A good verdict costs twice that to buy).

Soon an out-of-court settlement flushed down the pipes,
And the families went home to an emptier town.
Now the Queen of the North lies an infamous wreck,
With Shirley and Gerald, asleep below deck,
In peace, undisturbed by the roar of the Sound,
Undisturbed by the roar of the Sound.

She was born in the harbour of Germany’s port,
The shipyards of Bremen her watery womb,
But in spite of her thirty-eight years on the sea,
To the shame of investors in Coastal B.C.,
The Queen of the North’s a notorious tomb,
Ah, the Queen of the North is a tomb.